Blessed Again...

     We are happy to announce that we are expecting our 9th child next April.  Yesterday we heard the heartbeat and everything seems to be going fine.  I will be 12 weeks tomorrow and it has been a tiring few months for me.  I am looking forward to getting my energy back soon.  Overall the pregnancy has been good so far, no complications.  Four weeks before getting pregnant, I had a five week miscarriage.  We were so surprised to be pregnant the very next cycle.  We certainly were not trying, but God saw fit to bless us again.  We appreciate any prayers for this new life and for our family.

      I have been so bad about posting on my blog this year.  Things have been busier than ever.  Our focus right now is school and we are still trying to get into the groove.  That's because I have been taking naps almost daily and that affects everything. I hope the need for naps will decrease soon.

   

Mr. Snowman Comes for a Visit

We got nine inches and it is quickly melting away. 

Hello 2013

I guess it is about time I post something on my blog, since I haven't since last December.  So here's my first post of 2013.

In January, we celebrated Jesse's 5th birthday.  I'd post a picture, but I haven't put any pictures on my computer yet this year.  We've been busy, as usual.  The basement is now painted and ready for the vinyl flooring and then the bookshelves we are having made.  It will be nice to get all the books out of the boxes. 

Last week Rachel turned 7!  She enjoyed her birthday, but still wants a sleepover with her cousins.  We'll be doing that in a couple weeks. 

Our biggest news is that we are starting a new adventure in ministry.  God has called us to help start a church in the area.  It is very cool to see God's hand in all the circumstances that has led us to this point.  He was preparing us last year to be ready for this.  It is scary and exciting at the same time.  We are looking forward to seeing how God is going to work to bring people to Himself.  The planning has already begun and we will have a service on Easter.  We will have a few more test services after that, but in September the plan is to start having a weekly worship service.  It is at that time that we will make the switch.  Our kids will still be involved in ministries at our current church home, because that is where they're friends are.  I'm sure we will be doing that for at least a year.

We have six more weeks of school.  I am ready for a break.  I'm sure the kids are too.  I'm starting to think about gardening.  I have plants started already.  I sure would like to get out and till, but that won't work with snow on the ground!

My Surgery

    This week, two days before Thanksgiving, I had my first of two vein surgeries.  I had my right leg done first and right now I have 46 one-stitch, stitches.  I'm not in a lot of pain and overall it wasn't too bad.  The worst part of the whole thing was coming out of anesthesia and feeling sooooo tired.  Friends have provided meals and that has been such a blessing!  Today, on Thanksgiving, we are staying home because Josh was vomiting yesterday and we don't want to take a chance on passing that on.  So far no one else is sick.  I pray it stays that way.  I sure don't need that right now.  So no turkey for us today.  Fortunately, we had a turkey dinner last Saturday evening with some friends, so we did get to enjoy some turkey and stuffing.
     In a week and a half, I'll be having the surgery on my left leg.  This is a great time to be down, since there isn't too much to do other than school.  We got some school done this week and I feel pretty good about that. There is so much catching up to do on things, that I'm enjoying this down time to do things like catch up on my blog.

Jay Turns Ten...

This post is from last June and I forgot to post it, so I'm posting it now.

 

Last week we celebrated Jay's tenth birthday.  Josiah and Jay had a joint friend birthday party.  We had 8 boys join us and 6 spent the night.  They had a grand old time swimming, playing baseball and having a campfire.  They had planned on spending the night in the tent, but they ended up coming inside.  One of the boys told a scary story and scared all the rest.  Next time we'll do it when James can stay out with them and we'll have fewer spend the night.  We had to have a family debrief the night after everyone left.

Jay is a great kid.  Everyone loves him because he is so friendly and kind to others.  He is quick to lay down his life for others.  He loves baseball and playing games on the computer whenever I let him.  He is a good worker and doesn't complain too much when asked to help out.

Our Vacation To Glacier National Park

Here is Jonathan's unedited journal of our trip.  It is long and detailed and I haven't had a chance to read it all.  I thought some of you might like to read it.  I will be editing it later and adding pictures.  He wrote this in his ipod each day.  He is pretty fast at thumb typing.

Lake McDonald at Glacier

So we started driving at 11 pm on Friday night, after my brother's baseball game and drove all through the night, at least until we blew a tire at about three in the morning. After we replaced the tire with the spare, we drove through the without any problems. At about nine on Saturday morning we went to a Sears in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to buy a new tire. That stop took over an hour to get the old tire and replace it with a new one. After this, we started driving again and with no major problems, only that Jedaiah  had to go to the bathroom almost every thirty minutes. We drove all the way through South Dakota and passed through Wyoming to get to Montana. We started driving through Montana but stopped at a campground at about six in the evening to camp for the night. We set up our tent and started a fire to cook hot dogs and roast marshmallows. We were still a couple of hours away from our final destination: Glacier National Park.

     The next morning we packed up and left at about nine on Sunday morning. We drove on a lot of small highways and roads, but it was a scenic route and we saw some cool sights. At about 4:30 on Sunday, there was an accident right before we got there and a huge tractor trailer was blocking all of the lanes. We had to turn around and try to find a detour, but there were not many exits and we had to drive at least fifteen minutes in the other direction to find a new route. After we started driving on detour roads, we began to start asking around and looking for a gas station because we only had a quarter of a tank. Over an hour later, the small gas station in a very small town, had already closed.

By this time the tank was almost empty and we just kept driving and praying, but we didn't know what we would do next. As we drove we were thinking about the possibility of camping at a small state park for the night, although we already had reservations at Glacier National Park. Finally, we found a gas station! We were praising God and thanking Him that we could keep driving. We were so happy even though we were still two and a half hours from our campsite in Glacier. To celebrate, there was a small ice cream shop at the gas station, and we thought it would be nice to celebrate so we got some. After we ate our ice cream we set off again, hopefully we would be able to make it through without any more trouble.

     We finally made it to our destination, Glacier National Park. We arrived at our campsite at about nine on Sunday night and started to set up camp. We ate mac-n-cheese for dinner and then we got ready for bed and fell asleep quickly as we were all tired from a long day.

     On Monday morning, we ate breakfast and then Dad, Josh, Jay, and Josiah all went fishing at the Lake McDonald, which is where we were camping. Mom, the littles, and I all went to the visitor center to check it out. After we went to the visitor center and stores, we went back to our campsite and had some lunch.

Then, we walked down to the lake and went swimming, it was pretty cold but we got used to it. After we went swimming, we all went on a small little hike up to Rocky Point overlooking the lake.

After we finished the hike we walked back to our campsite. We made dinner and then sat around the campfire and had birthday cookies for my birthday. My mom was going to make brownies over the fire for my birthday, but she forgot to bring a pan to cook them in, so we had the frosting in between the cookies that we had. After this, we stayed up a little while longer, talking about what we would do the next day, then we went to bed.

On Tuesday morning we left to go on a five mile hike to Avalanche Creek and the "Trail of the Cedars. We saw huge trees and saw a cool waterfall. Then we went back to our campsite and went swimming, ate dinner, then went to bed. On Wednesday morning we woke up early and packed up everything to go to another campsite on the other side of the park. After driving for three hours, we got to the new campsite, but unfortunately the sites were all taken. Then we went to look at the cabins and see if there were any open, but they were full too. So we drove and found a small private campsite outside the park. We set up camp there and went boating in the pond and played some baseball.

The next morning we woke up early again and packed up to go find a campsite in the park. We got one of the last campsites there and it was only nine in the morning, but we were so happy. We set up camp again, ate breakfast, and just hung around until lunch time. Then, we went on a three mile hike to a cool lake and waterfall.  My dad and my brothers and went fishing at the lake, while the rest of us hiked back to camp. On the way back we saw a moose in another lake, it was so cool.  We also saw some ptarmigan on the trail, which are chicken-sized birds. Overall we had a great hike and it was a lot of fun.





 That night, we had a fire, roasted marshmallows, and stayed up late talking. On Friday morning, we got ready to go on a drive throughout the whole park. It was really cool, we saw a lot of glaciers and waterfalls, we also saw a lot of wildlife. We saw mountain goats, a black bear on the road, and a grizzly bear, all from our van. We all had a lot of fun on this day, and it all ended with a ranger program on wildfires.

Iceberg Lake



The next morning we got ready to go on a big, fifteen mile hike, with my dad and the three other older boys. We left at about nine in the morning to our destination, Iceberg Lake, which has an iceberg sticking out of the lake, and Ptarmigan Tunnel and Lake.

A view from the mountain top

We had hiked for about five miles when we got to Iceberg lake, it was so cool, and we actually got to touch a glacier on the side of the lake. Then we hiked to ptarmigan lake and had lunch there, then we hiked up the steep mountain to ptarmigan tunnel. On the way up we saw almost 30 bighorn sheep right beside the trail, some were only 20 feet from us. The tunnel was so cool, it is tunnel that goes through the mountain and the view from the other side was spectacular. After we went through the tunnel we hiked back down to the lake to do some fishing. I don't really like to fish but my brother and dad love to. So I watched them fish for a couple of hours and my dad actually caught the first fish of the trip. They were so excited and he skinned it right there and we were going to bring it back to camp to eat. After they finished fishing we hiked back down to our campsite, we got there at 7:30 in the evening and we were very tired, but it was the best hike of my life. Later that night we had a fire and stayed up late roasting marshmallows and talking.

On Sunday we went on a small hike to a lake and we brought fishing stuff to go fishing. We didn't catch anything, but we still had fun. That night we went to a ranger program at the campground on bears, it was pretty interesting.

The next morning we packed up everything and got ready for the drive home. We left the campsite at nine in the morning and we had about eight hours of driving to the small campsite. We had changed our plans of the drive home several times, but we decided to spend the night near North Dakota and on Tuesday morning drive to Theodore Roosevelt National Park only an hour away, to spend the day. After driving all day, we got to the road where the campsite was, but it was a dead end. We asked around, but nobody knew what we were talking about. They told us to go the next town, because there was a campsite there, but again there wasn't. We kept stoping at gas stations to ask where campsites were and someone told us about one, so we drove there, but we decided that if we couldn't find it we would just sleep in the van. After eating at a subway at a gas station it was  10:30 and we finally found a camping site, we set up our tent and all went to bed.

On Tuesday morning we packed up everything quickly and drove a half hour to
Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We were going to spend the day here before going home. We drove the scenic route and stopped and did little hikes to overlooks. It was a pretty cool place and we saw a lot of wildlife, bison, deer, and prairie dogs. At about four in the afternoon we left and got ready for the drive home all night. We stooped at a cracker barrel that night which is tradition after vacations.

We had a much less eventful drive back than the drive to get there. We made it home at 1:30 In the afternoon and started the long task of unpacking. We all had a lot of fun on this trip, but we were excited to be back home.

A Great Vacation...

We had a wonderful time away and are ready to get back into the routine.  The weather was beautiful with no rain.  We were so grateful that we got to go.  Jedaiah had been sick with fevers for eleven days the week before we left.  It turned out he had West Nile Virus.  I was glad we didn't find that out until he was recovered.  I have so much laundry to catch up on and gardening too.  There are so many pictures to go through from both Glacier National Park and also an added bonus of Theodore Roosevelt National Park (we stoppped there for a day on our trek home).  Jonathan kept track of the events of our trip and I took lots of pictures.  I hope to post soon.  I think I still need to finish our NH post too.